Pharmacies See Business Case For Blue Button

Following newly guaranteed patient access to their lab tests, the country’s largest pharmacies are promising to adopt a simple consumer health technology tool: the Blue Button personal health record.

Walgreens, Kroger, CVS, Rite Aid, Safeway and pharmacies with the National Association of Chain Drug Stores are pledging to start standardizing patient prescription information within the next year to accommodate applications and services using the Blue Button.

“These steps will help patients access their prescription information and further empower millions of Americans to better manage their healthcare,” U.S. deputy CTO Nick Sinai and and HHS Presidential Innovation Fellow Adam Dole wrote on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy blog.

Sinai and Dole argue that the new commitment from the pharmacies — some of them, like CVS, increasingly being a place for basic health services — will “fuel the growth” of Blue Button technologies and ultimately make it easier for more Americans to navigate their healthcare.